London Sinfonietta – Music for 18 Musicians: Schools Concert

The brilliant London Sinfonietta return to Birmingham for the first time in six years to present an all-Steve Reich programme. With its pulsating rhythms, cyclical chords, and shifting harmonics, Steve Reich’s Music for 18 Musicians has become one of the most iconic works of American minimalism. This schools’ performance provides an invaluable live music experience linked to the GCSE Music minimalism unit.

The first half will be an interactive exploration of the composer Steve Reich, the classical musical genre of minimalism, and his ground-breaking minimalist piece ‘Music for 18 Musicians’

The interactive exploration will be led by two facilitators with opportunities for pupils to try out rhythmical techniques as a group as well as live demonstrations of excerpts from the piece by London Sinfonietta

The second half will involve London Sinfonietta performing the latter part of the ‘Music for 18 Musicians’ piece to provide a valuable experience of live classical music performance in a world class concert hall setting.

Before the concert, all attendees will be sent out a teachers pack to prepare and/or follow up the concert visit with information on composer Steve Reich, the minimalist movement in music, exploration of some key works by Reich and related listening exercises.

In addition, London Sinfonietta have created an interactive app which can be downloaded for free and used in lessons to introduce the genre of minimalism and another of Steve Reich’s pieces ‘Clapping Music’. More information about the app can be found here:

Please note this event is only suitable for secondary schools. To book your FREE schools tickets please email groupbookings@thsh.co.uk with the following information:

Lead contact name, email address and telephone number

School name and full address

Total number of tickets required, including number of pupils and teachers

Any access requirements

When you are booking, your school will be asked to make a voluntary donation to our learning and participation programme. Your donation means that we can continue to connect over 15,000 young people and adults to music every year – nurturing a lifelong love of music.

All attendees will receive a teacher resource pack full of information and activities about Steve Reich and his music ahead of the concert.